Saturday, October 12, 2013

It's Extraordinary

Nicholas Frankovich, "It's Extraordinary" (On the Square, September 26, 2013), ponders the demise of the traditional Latin Mass at the vibrantly orthodox Church of Our Savior in Manhattan after Cardinal Dolan's "lateral promotion" of its pastor, Fr. George Rutler, to Hell's Kitchen.

An interesting conclusion:
As Pope Benedict noted drily in his letter accompanying Summorum Pontificum, ”The use of the old Missal presupposes a certain degree of liturgical formation and some knowledge of the Latin language; neither of these is found very often.” The extraordinary form is difficult in the way that anything that’s rewarding but exacting is difficult, like classical music when what we know is mainly popular music.

At Mass in the ordinary form, we experience it as something that projects itself from the sanctuary into the pews: It meets us halfway. At Mass in the extraordinary form, “Introibo ad altare Dei,” I will go to the altar of God. In the United States, a number of Catholics higher than anyone might have predicted from a survey of Catholics worldwide prefer to do the harder thing. Call it American exceptionalism.
[Hat tip to JM]

1 comment:

Mick Jagger Gathers No Mosque said...

Literally every single aspect of Catholic Tradition has been baptised by Ecumenism (the Universal Solvent) and dissolved and because the Mass is the most effective form of communicating Doctrine, it had to be destroyed by the mad modernists and the execrable ecumenists.

And it was destroyed and S.P. was intended by Ratzinger only as an act of tolerance to those who had an emotional attachment to it.

Until the evil Mass of Pope Paul VI is destroyed there can be no hope of a restoration of any sort.

One can literally swallow a nail and, over time, the acid in the stomach will dissolve the nail and what the stomach does to a nail over time is what Pope Paul's Mass does to Faith over time - it dissolves it.

One ought neither swallow a nail or the Assembly Rite of the Lord's Supper